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Monday, November 25, 2013

Who is going to pay for the ACA ("Obamacare")? Nice graph here showing the age group that the Act is depending on to finance it. Is that a middle finger I see from you 27 year olds?

(1) the middleblue barthat shoots up over the rest represents a portion of 27 year olds who likely lost their parental coverage. In 2010 one of the first parts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA---"Obamacare") to kick in was the requirement that a dependent child could stay on the parents insurance until age 26. Booted off after that.

(2) the whole age group represented by the blue bars represents what is termed "The Invincibles--- Young people who have relatively few health issues and forgo purchasing health insurance because they believe the costs outweigh the benefits. THIS is the group that the financial success of the ACA is dependent upon and the individual mandate is primarily aimed at this demographic ( I don't THINK that is in dispute). They are going to either purchase coverage OR pay the penalty (or Tax, if you will). Their contribution will go towards subsidizing the health care of those on the right AND left of the distribution.

Note: I added the YELLOW highlighted area as "spillover" Invincibles up to the age of 40. Notice the drop off after 40....Guess it is time to get real for those folks!! :)